This year, the Sunday Times rich list came out on the same day as financial regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealed that 21% of UK people have less than £1,000 in their bank. The rich list shows that the 350 wealthiest families have maintained vast wealth at £773 billion, down only 3% from last year.
Rich list: taking the piss
The figures will heighten calls for a wealth tax. Deputy leader of the Green Party Zack Polanski is running for the leadership. He has called for a 1% wealth tax on the richest 1%, rebalancing the economy by £75 billion per year. Ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves budget, 30 MPs called on her to introduce a wealth tax.
The FCA also found that one in ten people have no money in their bank whatsoever. They live entirely pay check to pay check. Meanwhile, the 14th richest family in the country is that of the Duke of Westminster. His own father said he was “born with the longest silver spoon anyone could ever have”.
According to the Sunday Times rich list, his family fortune now stands at £10bn. It illustrates what people mean when they say the economy is ‘rigged’. The cash goes back to Norman times when his ancestor was gifted loads of land by the King, with the fortune also increasing after a marriage.
Rigged economy
Now the Duke has a property empire. He holds 300 acres of London as part of his global property ‘assets’. After inheriting his wealth, he is now profiteering on it through exploitation of the housing bubble, which successive governments have maintained. Despite housing being a common necessity to all that could be organised at cost price, Real Estate is the most profitable industry in the UK. Top companies average an astonishing £686,000 of profit per year per employee. That’s a private tax on homes at 23 times the UK average salary, per employee.
On top of that, the Duke avoided the 40% inheritance tax on the £9bn estate. If he had been taxed, it would have rebalanced the economy by almost as much as the Treasury collected in inheritance tax in the entire year. That’s because the estate is registered as a trust. What a joke.
Meanwhile, as the rich list dropped the FCA also found 12 million people in the UK feel overwhelmed or stressed because of their financial circumstance. We need to remove profit from our risk-free common essentials, while the private market can explore avenues in the rest of the economy.
Featured image via the Canary
